


Valkorion

by PoorQueequeg



Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Angst, Drama, F/M, Feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-05
Updated: 2017-11-05
Packaged: 2019-01-29 20:52:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12638946
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PoorQueequeg/pseuds/PoorQueequeg
Summary: It's times like these that she wishes it would never end, even if part of her knows that's a dreadful thing to say.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The disjointed mess of feels that makes no sense but doesn't need to.

A warm breeze worries the curtains by the door, open this morning to reveal a striking view of mountains and the city nestled in the valley below them. In the distance Rey spies the usual slow crawl of traffic through the air and the sky is streaked with the long white trails of ships moving in and out of the atmosphere. She wanders onto the balcony and catches the sweet scents carried up from the garden below. It is beautiful, she cannot deny, a sanctuary in a city within a city, a wall behind a wall. She nibbles at the piece of bread in her fingers, before tossing it over the side to watch the swarm of small birds that descend upon it and enjoy their tiny squeaks of indignity as they squabble.  
   
Rey retreats to the fresher for one of her favorite rituals. This will always be a luxury for her, the desert rat standing under a spray of water so clear and pure it would cost more than all the junk in Niima Outpost to pay for it. She turns it up scalding hot and down to freezing cold, turns the settings through light spray to jet to massage to mist until she settles on the one she feels most inclined to that day. She sinks onto a bench in the wall and leans back against the warm tile, her hand idling around her waist.  
   
She isn't crying, water from the fresher trickling across her brow to drip from the end of her nose and down her stomach. She's not sad, just....afraid. He said something to her once about love but she wonders now if maybe she hadn't just been blinded by it, grasping at the hope that there was still good in him. There _is_ good in him, growing every day from the seed she planted.

These days it's what's inside of her that frightens her.  
   
Xxx  
 

Rey strains beneath the sheer power of him, both hands clutched around the hilt of her saber as she struggles not to yield. He flexes his arm, his blade growling as it pulses against hers and she yelps, a feeble girlish sound.  
   
He huffs a breath, an odd sound like amusement and when she looks up at him a slow smile spreads across his face. “I've waited for this moment,” Ren tells her, his face so close she can feel his breath on her cheek. She's pinned, hemmed into a corner and the only exit is through him. He's so strong, Rey can't remember him being this powerful, can't believe she ever defeated him. Unless...  
   
She trembles. Looking up into his flaming eyes is just like the first time, like there's something there that's comforting, familiar somehow. Even with the scar she can't help but think how handsome he is, wonders if that isn't why she cut his face like maybe she was trying to punish him for the things he hadn't made her feel yet. His lashes flutter as his eyes rake across her lean form and he seems to deflate a little, the menace in his bearing melting out of him with his soft sigh of breath. “I had it all planned out," he utters. Rey struggles to swallow around the lump in her throat as he continues. "What I would do when I finally caught you.”  
   
She staggers back a step as his saber disappears with hiss, looking him up and down cautiously and holding her blade out in front of her. Kylo steps closer and she flicks it upward, threatening but even he can see how her hands are shaking. He blinks and smiles again, his expression wounded somehow.  
   
“But I can't remember now,” he confesses.  
   
Xxx  
   
   
General Organa is standing beneath the viewport with her arms folded when Rey enters the makeshift conference room, cobbled together from bits and pieces salvaged from the now ruined resistance base.  
   
“My son,” Leia offers and Rey nods.  
  
“He took me surprise,” Rey explains, shaking her head. “I don't know how he did it but he tricked me somehow.” Leia straightens her shoulders and turns to look at Rey with sympathetic eyes. Rey frowns. “I should have realized he was there sooner.”  
   
“You are not responsible for his actions,” Leia assures her but Rey isn't so convinced.  
   
“I wonder if I shouldn't leave,” she says, staring at the reflection on the polished table top. “If that isn't how he found us.” Leia ambles closer and puts her hand on Rey's shoulder. Rey raises her chin and meets the General's sad eyes. “I try, really I do. I try to keep him out but....sometimes it's so hard.”  
   
“Rey....”  
   
“I don't want to let you down,” Rey continues sorrowfully. Leia squeezes her shoulder and stares at her with unfocussed eyes for a long moment before she smiles, a wan, tired gesture  
   
“Get some rest, Rey,” the General implores softly. “Force knows you've earned it.”  
   
Xxx

Her feet are heavy on the soft ground, darting through the darkness with an ache in her chest and another between her legs. Her ears are full of the sound of her heart beating and the rasp of breath that she can't quite catch. Ahead, through the trees she spies a light, the faint blue flicker of binary and as she draws closer, the specter of an X-wing in the shadows.  
  
Safety.  
   
Escape.  
   
Rey had one job tonight. The knowledge that she's probably caused untold numbers of casualties makes it a bitter victory, even if those lives were First Order but this is war. What good is her compassion if she let them overrun the resistance base? She doesn't have long to get into the air before the entire place will go up but she's not sure her legs are going to carry her any further. She staggers, face first into the mud and her breath leaves her body with an inelegant grunt. Her head smacks hard onto a fallen branch and she winces, a lump on her head to add the list of scrapes she's acquired this evening but she won't stop now, not when she's so close. Aching limbs scrabble against the leaf covered earth and it's then that she feels it, feels him.  
   
She knew he would follow, even though they both knew the chances of him catching up with her were slim. She's not so feeble now as to be easily pinned like she was before and she had the foresight to throw his boots into the lake. Rey isn't sure how she feels about it all but she knows he couldn't live with himself if he didn't at least try, a slight on his manhood, proof of his affection.  
   
Her droid is chirping with manic desperation as the canopy descends over her and her fingers are furiously working the console, one hand priming the boosters as the other tugs the harness over her shoulder. The ground beneath the ship begins to judder and she knows she doesn't have long, grabbing the steering and yanking hard. Light blooms around her, reflecting brightly in the panels on her dash as behind the base is engulfed with flames. Scant seconds later and she hits atmo, relief flooding her as the twilight sky gives way to endless space. She pays no heed to the First Order destroyer that looms above, the coordinates are already set. 

Xxx  
   
Rey sits patiently on the bed while Dr. Kalonia prods at the bump on her head, smears bacta on the cut on her arm. Rey runs her tongue over her teeth and takes a deep breath, her nose twitching as she holds it for as long as she can.  
   
“Doctor,” she says eventually. “I have a question.”  
   
“Yes,” Kalonia drawls in a mild tone, peeking up at Rey through her lashes as she wraps a small bandage over the bacta soaked burn. Rey gulps.  
   
“About....men,” she manages, averting her eyes as she feels the doctor's curious gaze on her face. Rey flushes hotly and she's sure she must be bright red but when she eventually glances back to Kalonia she sees not judgement but a gentle expression of mild concern.  
   
“Did something happen?” Kalonia asks her gently and Rey coughs, clearing her throat somewhat excessively.  
   
“No! No, not...no,” she lies, trying to school her face into nonchalance. “It's just a general question,” she insists and the doctor nods.  
   
“Well okay,” she replies with a smile. “What do you want to know.” Rey sticks her jaw to one side and chews her lip.  
   
“Ummm,” she says, glancing up at the ceiling and fiddling with the adhesive on her bandage.

Kalonia nods and gives her a sympathetic smile.  
   
   
 Xxx  
   
She can't really believe she's doing this but she doesn't tell him to stop. She nearly accepted ten portions for it but this seems a much wiser investment given the stakes. He whimpers and holds her tight against him and she hadn't expected his skin to be so soft. He's trying not to hurt her, trying and failing but she doesn't care, a mystery has been revealed and she's a woman now. That's something isn't it?  
   
He kisses her gently, holds her in his arms like she's the most precious thing in the galaxy. She stares through the broken window at the glowing skyline in the distance and tries to focus. They could be mistaken for insects dancing around one another in the warmth of a summer evening, but it isn't the summer sun that lends the air its heat. The come closer and the sound amplifies, like the buzz of a bloodsucker in the ear but as they grow nearer the buzz becomes a deafening scream. Two pilots locked in battle, their ships weaving together in an obscene parody of what goes on unseen below, building to a crescendo more deadly but no less violent. The ships collide, tumbling together in a blistering fireball that streaks across the sky, spiralling downward to carry their pilots to an untimely end.  
   
This is war, even if right now it doesn't quite seem like it.  
   
Rey is jostled by the explosion, her eyes opening to see a trickle of dust appear from the rafters above. Downward it floats, slowly swirling through the shaft of light that cuts the darkness. A flash beyond a broken window, an endless spectacle of color behind the smeared glass and a booming symphony of blasts and rumbling explosions. His hair is soft beneath her fingers, his lips gentle against her thigh and something tugs at her deep inside. Blinding. Searing. Another flash, another boom.  
   
“Where are you going?” he demands as she pulls on her clothes, catching her hand before she can scurry out into the night. Rey isn't expecting the look on his face, like a kicked Ewok cub. She opens her mouth to speak but no words come out and she stands there gawping at him like a fish in a bowl. “You're coming with me,” he tells her, gentle but firm. “Sweet girl,” he murmurs, kissing across her brow and down her nose towards her mouth. Rey gulps and steps back, blinking back a tear.

Surely she's not worried about hurting him of all people?  
 


	2. Chapter 2

It's not like the wasteland of Jakku, but the earth is scorched and the wind just as coarse against her skin. Even so, to Rey it is a wonderland, dotted with rangy shrubs and odd thorny succulents silhouetted against a clear sky. She watches from the mouth of the cave, sharp eyes catching the flutter of legs against the dust below. A reptile, its skin bright green banded with blue and white, scurries between the rocks as winged predators circle the sky above. Rey takes a breath and lets her mind wander, seeing through the eyes of the rust colored bird as it tracks its prey. Blinking, she feels a tiny heart beating out a panicked rhythm inside her chest, finding herself now on the parched ground hurrying towards her burrow in the distance. She feels it, the terror courses through her even as the hunger of the hawk lingers in the back of her head. She empties her mind, tries not to let it hurt as claws dig into her back, stifles a cry of pain as a sharp beak pierces her skin and instead lets the bird's intense sense of victory wash over her. The chicks will not go hungry. She sighs and watches the bird climb upward once more, the dying lizard trapped in its talons. Its suffering is not utterly senseless. She watches it disappear into the hills and the valley is still once more.  
   
 Xxx  
   
   
“Rey?!” She opens her eyes to see Finn looking down at her with curious concern, his hand applying gentle pressure through her sleeve. She straightens in her seat and inhales. “You coming?” Her lashes flutter and she glances around.  
   
“Yeah,” she says with a shake of her head, trying to clear her thoughts as she rises to her feet. Finn throws his arm around her shoulder and she doesn't stop him, lets him guide her through slow moving train of bodies on their way out of the debriefing.  
   
The war is not over but the battle is, a minor success in the grand scheme of things but cause enough for celebration. The General knows well enough to try and make the best of a bad situation and with the shadow of the evacuation still hanging over their heads, the resistance desperately need to celebrate something, anything.  
   
It's raining outside, a heavy downpour that drums on the roof and soaks the earth. The hangar has been turned into a makeshift dancehall, the broad space between engines filled with gyrating bodies and chattering voices. The air is thick, humid with the sweat of over eager resistance pilots and the mephitic odor of home made alcohol.  
   
Rey only drinks it because Poe gives it to her but everybody's doing it, laughing and talking and  
dancing to the rag tag band playing from atop a service vehicle parked at one end of the chamber. It's a happy time and hooch helps you pretend you're happy.  
   
Poe wraps his arms around her and lifts her in the air, a ridiculous grin on his face as she squeals. Around and around they spin until she's so dizzy she sees three Finns smiling at her. The sound of Poe's laughter is so infectious that she can't help giggling. It's better than crying.  
   
Xxx  
   
She awakes to pain, the manic beeping of the console in her X-wing and the acrid stench of smoke. Flames roar around the engines behind, whipping in the dry breeze and burning like the sun on her back. She needs to get out, but stars it hurts to move and her legs are trapped. She tries to go in on herself, to channel the force to block the pain and climb free of the ship but her head spins and an agonizing spasm lances through her when she tries.  
   
The pain flares and she whimpers, realizing belatedly that hands are grappling with the dislodged panel pinning her legs. A grunt, familiar somehow, gruff and angry and then the pain again, even worse now.  
   
“No, no, no, it hurts,” she cries as strong arms wrap around her and pull her free of the fuselage. Her memory is hazy. She recalls only the constant pain, a hard body at her side and the deafening roar of her X wing exploding.  
   
Xxx  
   
Rey is lingering in the place between waking and sleeping. If she wakes in the night, she always falls back into a very deep sleep and when the morning comes her head is like lead on the pillow. She blinks slowly, peering through her hair at the sunlight through the window as she grasps at the last tendrils of her dream. Deep sleep and vivid dreams, the kind that disappear the moment that reality hits. She can't remember if they were good or bad.  
   
She breathes in, she breathes out and lies still, aware of the gentle clatter of activity drifting from beyond the bedroom. Slowly, stiffly she rises to a sitting position, the bedsheet pooling around her midriff as she rubs the heel of her palm against her temple. She is stretching languidly when he comes back, not quite Kylo Ren yet in his state of half dress. He smiles at her and when he reaches down to greet her lips with a soft kiss, she lets her arms go around his shoulders.  
   
Rey leans her head against his shoulder as he sinks onto the bed beside her, setting down a glass of juice on the beside table and digging into the drawer for her pills. Dutifully she swallows them, a red one for her blood and a white one for her bone marrow. Ren strokes her hair as she takes them, checks the palms of her hands to check the flush of blood in the creases and trying to convince himself he can undo a lifetime of neglect. He can't see her ribs anymore and she still doesn't eat as much as he thinks she should but it is a blessing at least that she is still very young, a fact of which is reminded when she leans her hand into his palm and looks at him with wide, sad eyes.  
   
“I made breakfast,” he says, and she thinks the least she can do is summon the energy to give him a smile.  
   
Xxx  
   
It is good to feel the sun on her face. She hadn't given much thought to how she might miss it. She takes a deep breath and leans back against the warm rock, grimacing at the twinge in her side. Her fingers idle at the bandages around her midriff, peeking beneath the dusty rags at the mottled yellow purple color that spreads across her skin. Rey takes a moment to consider her injuries, the cracked ribs and the twisted ankle that is healing well enough. She lets her fingers trail across the bump on her crown, the impact that left her out cold. She wonders if it didn't knock all sense from her at the same time.  
   
The shadow of the Falcon and the familiar screech of its engines should be a welcome sight.  
   
It is a welcome sight.  
   
And it isn't.  
   
Rey shields her eyes from the glare of the sun with her hand an watches as it sinks below the hills to land a short distance away from the charred remains of her X-wing. She knew they would come for her eventually.  
   
The last stretch across the valley is slow, her ankle still aching and her strength not what it could be. It's good enough for a dead woman.  
   
It's Chewbacca who spots her first and the sound of his voice cutting through the air would make her heart leap with joy if she hadn't left it in the cave behind her.  
   
Finn is screaming, hollering her name and running across the scrub towards her but when he spies the limp, the bruise on her cheek it's only with the most cautious of hugs that he greets her. He wants to carry her but she can't quite bring herself to accept his embrace right then. She lets herself lean her weight against his sturdy frame and bask in the joy he radiates at having her back safe.  
   
Onboard he tries to guide her to the medbay but she shakes her head and gives him a tired smile, a genuine and honest smile. Of course she is happy to see him, to see them both.  
   
“No, it's okay,” she assures him. “It's not so bad, really.”  
   
“It's alright now, Rey,” he tells her as she eases stiffly down into the passenger seat of the Falcon's small cockpit. “You just relax now, we've got you.” She sighs, feeling a sharp tug pull through her as they hit atmo and her stomach flips flops. She closes her eyes and doesn't look back but when her head droops with sleep, she dreams of that moon.  
   
   
   
Xxx  
   
The evening draws on, the cool air breezing in through the open hangar door clearing out the stale, sweaty air. It's not cold, just cooler now the rains have come to break the stifling heat that has settled over the base. Rey slopes towards it, unable to resist the sound of the raindrops on the tarmac. She shuffles outward, water soaking through the soles of her boots and the hot wind gusting the misty air into her face. She doesn't mean to remember but she doesn't want to forget either.  
   
 “You'll catch your death,” Poe teases. Rey starts in mild surprise.  
   
“Huh?” she murmurs, seeming to take a moment to come back to herself. Poe frowns but his look is playful enough.  
   
“Get under here you crazy thing,” he urges, tugging her back inside the door. Rey sways under his touch but doesn't resist as he pulls her close against his side and kisses the side of her head. “Stars, you're soaked through,” he chides playfully, his breath warm through her hair. Rey meets his sparkling eyes and smiles affectionately as he guides her back into the party. “Come on, lets get you another drink.”  
   
  
   
Xxx  
   
She detects his approach even before she hears his feet on the stony ground. She doesn't turn to look at him, staring out instead at the slowly sinking sun over the horizon as he comes to a stop beside her. In the distance the gentle curve of a planet is slowly coming into view, a mass of green and blue swirling with clouds that will dominate the night sky of this small moon.  
   
“It's peaceful here,” he comments.  
   
“Funny isn't it?” Rey murmurs, turning her face towards him but not really looking at him. “With everything going on up there.” She hears his sighing inhalation of breath and a moment later he sinks down to perch on the rock beside her. They will sit here tonight, warming themselves by the fire and watching the bright flash of battling ships between the stars. She never thought she could experience such serenity in the midst of war, never imagined she'd wish that the guns would go on and on.  
   
“What have you got there?” she chirps, gesturing at the hand obscured by his knees and peeking up cautiously to meet his eyes. Kylo Ren turns his face to her and gives her a small smile.  
   
“Supper,” he tells her, lifting up two small rust colored bodies covered with feathers.  
   
“Hmm,” is all she manages to reply, frozen in place by the unfathomable depth of his stare until he blinks and looks away.  
   
“Let me see your foot,” Ren commands her gently, reaching for her swollen ankle and laying it in his lap.  
   
“It's better I think,” Rey tells him as he slowly unpeels the bandage to reveal bruised and puffy skin beneath. He frowns.  
   
“You walked on it,” he half growls and Rey swallows, wondering how she could forget how menacing he can be.  
   
“No it's fine,” she protests. “I was just testing how it felt.” Rey narrows her eyes a little and wills him to understand how unbearable this all is for her, to be so incapacitated and helpless. She thinks somehow that he prefers her this way, enfeebled and utterly reliant on him, unable to escape. He takes a deep breath and lets it out in a loud displeased huff through his nose, frowning at her even as his fingers stroke across the bruise on her foot. It is a touch that soothes away the kinds of hurts that can't be seen on the skin, the kind that linger on the inside.  
   
The sun is just past the horizon now, the planet hanging low across a sky painted in pinks and purples. Rey leans back against the rocks and just stares, struggling to recall ever seeing such a perfect sight.


	3. Chapter 3

War is terror, suffering, it's monstrous and murderous and so utterly, utterly senseless. When the battle stops he'll go back to what he knows. She'll put it out of her mind as best she can, clambering through the ruins and the rubble back towards her X wing and another implausible escape. The luckiest pilot in the Resistance, if not quite the best. She half wonders if Luke doesn't already know, if Leia does, wonders if her lover doesn't worry the very same thing. They don't talk about it. These are questions with answers that no-one wants to hear.  
   
“I don't know what to call you,” she says, brushing his hair out of his eyes. “Ben? Kylo?”  
   
“It doesn't matter,” he says, leaning his forehead against hers. “When I'm with you I'm someone else.”  
   
It's times like these that she wishes it would never end, even if part of her knows that's a dreadful thing to say.  
 

Xxx

 

Rey turns her back on another windy afternoon on Ach-to and descends the narrow steps into the catacombs, sitting under a wide beam of sunlight that streams through a window high up in the roof. She's not alone but R2 doesn't bother her, lurking quietly as she discovers the secrets of the old Republic, the Empire, the Jedi and the Sith. She folds her jacket beneath her like a cushion and lets herself sink into a sea of knowledge so vast and deep she thinks she would need ten lifetimes to even begin to understand it all. Images dance from time worn holocrons, voices long dead speak to her in obsolete dialects and time slips away until the sun disappears. As the daylight fades R2 chirps, casting a bright light up the wall and eliciting a small smile from her.  
   
She is loitering under a pillar, an ancient text in her arms when she senses Master Luke's approach. Rey stares at the words on the page in her arms, sucking her lower lip slowly between her teeth as she considers what she has read.  
   
“It says here,” she begins, not looking up as she hears his slow footsteps growing closer. “That the Emperor Valkorion murdered his stepfather at the age of six and proceeded to torture his own mother for months afterwards.” The scepticism in her tone is unmistakeable and when he comes to a stop beside her, she looks up at him with one brow raised. He purses his lips and lets out a sigh of breath as he considers this. “A six year old?” she utters, disbelieving.  
   
“You don't believe it?” Luke asks quietly and Rey huffs a breath.  
   
“Or I don't want to,” she admits and he nods, reaching down to take the tome from her outstretched arms and folding it shut.  
   
“Don't let it trouble you,” he says.  
   
Xxx  
   
The rain is so thick she can't see further than the end of her arm, the wind driving it in sheets across the earth. He holds his cape over them, the rain pelting it so loudly he has to shout to be heard.  
   
“How can you?” he chokes, his hair plastered against his forehead and droplets catching on the end of his nose. Rey lets her eyes track the path of one raindrop as it slides downward across the scar on his face. The face of her enemy. “How can you let them kiss you and hold you? Don't you know what it does to me?”  
   
“It's not like that,” she utters in a voice that betrays how tired and cold she is but he doesn't seem to hear her.  
   
“And you let the doctor feed you that...poison,” he spits. “Like the very thought of us together disgusts you.” Rey shakes her head.  
   
“It's my choice,” she counters forcefully. "My body." His face screws up all the same, his eyes wet with rain and tears.  
   
“You're mine,” he tells her, pressing close and pinning her against the tree. “I just want to take care of you.” Rey lets her hands roam across the sodden fabric that clings to his chest, their sabers forgotten in the mud at their feet. “Come with me,” he begs and his eyes are so sad, it breaks her heart. She suspects that's the intention when his lips press against hers. “Please,” he murmurs into her mouth.  
   
She can't go with him. She won't go with him.

Xxx

“I don't have any right to be jealous.” Rey lurks behind the door, repressing the urge to shiver and wiping a droplet of water off her nose with the back of her hand. She lowers her eyes, a dark puddle staining the floor where her rain soaked clothes are dripping. Finn's voice is quiet but there's no mistake the sorrow in his tone. “It's not like we.....I mean, I hoped but....you know, I thought we were just taking it slow. She's been on her own so long and I didn't want to scare her.”  
   
“Did you try talking to her?” Poe's voice is mild, understanding even as Finn huffs a bitter laugh.  
   
“I don't know where she half the time and when I do it's like....” A pause. Her breath seems unnaturally loud so she bites her lip, holding it in as long as she can. “It's like she goes off in her head, like her body's there but her mind isn't.”  
  
“Come on Finn,” Poe says soothingly. “She's....special, she's....you know how it is.” Rey gets the feeling Poe's trying to convince himself as much as Finn. “You think she's seeing somebody?”  
   
“I don't know but something's not right,” Finn confesses. Rey turns on her heel and slips silently towards her bunk, wishing to the heavens that it wasn't true.

Xxx  
   
They can't go on like this.  
   
She prowls the ruined temple, feels him close but she can't seem to find him. Maybe he knows, sees what's she's planning as much as she tries to hide her thoughts from him. As she moves around the abandoned complex she spies the odd relic of the old rebellion, a different war and yet the same fight. When will it end? She sinks down at the foot of a crumbling pillar and tells herself she shouldn't have come.  
   
She's already crying when he finds her. When she sees his tall form crossing the temple floor, his mask is off and there's such ardor in his expression she feels sick to her stomach.  
   
“I can't,” she manages around the lump in her throat. She can see the quivering of his lip out of the corner of her eye but she can't look at him, dare not. “I can't do this anymore.”  
   
“What are you talking about?” he growls, a gloved hand on her chin as he forces her to look at his face.  
   
“I can't stand all these lies!” she gasps, tears streaming down her cheeks. His eyes track the path of them down her face. “They know.”  
   
“They don't know anything,” he utters through gritted teeth. Rey shakes her head.  
   
"They will!"  
   
“And so what if they do?” he spits, pulling her into his arms with such fierceness it shocks the air out of her lungs.  
   
“Let me go!” Rey sobs, shoving him feebly. He waivers but doesn't relent, reaching for her again to pull her closer. “Stop it!” She brings her fist down on his chest and pounds at him, once, twice, three times until he catches her fist in his hand.  
   
“I've had enough of these games,” he growls with such venom she shivers. “Haven't I been patient? Haven't I given you time?” He tries to kiss her but she twists her face away from him and his anger spikes through her in a hot, hard bolt. “Why do you fight it?” he cries, his anguish evident in his face as he forces her to look at him. “You belong with me. You belong to me!”  
   
“I don't belong to anybody” she hisses, rage pulsing through her at his proprietousness. She's not a thing to be owned.  
   
“I know you love me,” he gasps, his breath hot against her cheek.  
   
“I don't,” she sobs, trying to wrestle her arms out of his grip.  
   
“You do,” he says, pushing her arms above her head. “Let me remind you.”

Xxx  
  
Rey traces a finger across a long red line that runs up the length of his thigh, a remnant of another battle, a token of the same war.  
   
“This explains a lot,” she says meekly, her voice distorted where her cheek is squashed against his stomach and her fingers idling over his skin. “The limp.” She rises and falls with the gentle swell of his breath, a hand in her hair while the other runs up and down her back. The walls groan around them as the battle rages on outside.  
   
“Yes,” he replies, his voice curt but not unkind. Rey presses her lips together and lets her finger move upward over the bowcaster bolt that flares up his side like a star gone nova. His stomach twitches under her touch and she hears him gulp before he lets out a shuddering breath.  
   
“Why do you keep your scars?” she ventures. She doesn't ask him for anything pertinent to her mission, no lenience for the resistance but small, trifling questions about his life. Does he drink caff? Does he like music? Is he lonely without her?  
   
“They remind me of my failures,” he croaks after a minute, his hand moving in slow circles over her shoulder. Rey feels inexplicably sad, glancing up at his scarred face as his thumb brushes her bicep. “And my successes.” Her eyes fall closed as his arms squeeze gently around her.

 

Xxx  
   
The sound of his saber against the stone is loud, the impact so jarring that birds roosting in the hollowed walls above take flight. The flapping of wings drifts around the chamber, small bodies silhouetted black against the sky as they disappear into the woods outside.  
   
When he turns to her there is such malice in his expression that it chills her, dark eyes glaring at from beneath the mop of too long hair that hangs across his brow.  
   
“Isn't that why you've come?” Kylo mutters in a pouting, sulking kind of voice. Rey swallows and tugs her tunic down, smooths sweaty palms across her thighs. “To stab me through the heart?”  
   
“No,” she says with a shake of her head, even though she knows she probably should.  
   
“But you think I deserve it,” he spits and she clenches her jaw, staring at the dusty black hilt of his saber on the stone beside her.  
   
“I don't know what I think anymore,” she confesses, bending down stiffly to retrieve his weapon from the floor and holding it out to him. He stares at it for a minute but doesn't move. “Take it, for pity's sake,” Rey utters in exasperation. Gloved fingers brush against hers and she steps back like she's been burned.  
   
The room is still, silent but for the vague hush of breeze through the trees, the distant chatter of roosting birds above. Rey takes in the rise and fall of his shoulders, the clenching of his fist at his side and deflates. “I can't be your reason,” she murmurs, her vision blurred by the tears that cling to her lashes. Steeling herself with a deep breath she turns and begins to walk briskly towards the open door.  
   
She senses it before it strikes, a flutter in the Force before vibrations shudder through the floor like a seismic jolt. She gasps, a deafening crash booming off the walls as a towering pillar crumbles to the ground, blocking her exit. Rubble clatters across the floor towards her forcing her back and as the cloud of dust begins to settle she hears the snarl of his saber behind her, ominous once more.  
   
“You think you know what love is,” he tells her, his saber spitting fire at his side and his dark eyes boring into her. “You don't know anything.”  
   
“What are you doing?” she breathes, the words catching in her throat as her heart begins to pound.  
   
“You think it's all good and sweet,” he continues, taking a slow step sideways in the beginning of a predatory dance that she recognizes. “You think you're all good and sweet but you're not.” Rey doesn't move, refusing to let him intimidate her even though he's easily the most frightening thing she's ever seen. He always was.  
   
“Is this what love is?” Rey demands hoarsely, gesturing towards his weapon and matching his pace to maintain the distance between them.  
   
“Love isn't good,” he rasps, clenching his teeth and his fist. “You're not good and neither am I.”  
   
“I don't know what I ever saw in you,” she says more to herself than to him. He recoils a little at this, raising his chin and peering down his nose at her in disgust.  
   
“You saw yourself,” he sneers.  
   
“Why are you doing this?” she cries, sniffing back her tears even as she's reaching for the blade at her waist.  
  
 “I'm getting tired of seeing you walk away from me.” And then his arm is up, saber blazing as he charges towards her.  
   
Xxx  
   
Rey hadn't considered before that a lightsaber was such a multi-function tool. Hers is currently wedged into a pile of rocks, the blade reflecting brightly off the walls of the cave and casting a delightful lilac glow off the red rock. She peels the bandage off her foot and stares at the steaming water, watching with curious amusement as her companion cautiously dips his hand into the pool.  
   
“Hmmm,” he mumbles with a nod. “Perfect.” Ren sits back on his knees and plucks his weapon from the floor, the long red beam rising out of the water with a hiss. Rey never considered that sound might be anything other than terrifying but it's really not so scary right now. “It's ready,” he says, looking up at her and tipping his head to one side, gesturing at the bath.  
   
“Huh,” she says. “Such a luxury.” He blinks and looks at her but doesn't say anything. “I've never had a bath before.” Ren grins.  
   
“I can tell,” he mocks and she scowls, throwing her bundled up bandage at him. So odd, seeing him smile like that, seeing him pluck the rag off his shoulder and slowly roll it up. “Come on,” he urges, reaching his hand out to her.  
   
Rey lets out a sigh of pleasure as her feet sink into the warm water. “Oh, my,” she observes, glancing at him to find him watching her with affectionate eyes. She doesn't protest as he comes closer and gently unwinds the bandage wrapped around her chest, gently touching a finger to the fading bruise there. She hisses a little and he frowns.  
   
“Did I hurt you?” he asks, worry evident in his tone. Rey shakes her head and stares at the wall.  
   
“You're so odd,” she comments, sinking cautiously into the water.  
   
“How is that?” he replies and she takes a deep breath, uncertain how to explain.  
   
“You're too....I don't know,” Rey muses, letting her eyes drift around the striated rocks above her. “I wonder how you can be so kind to me.” He doesn't speak and after a moment, Rey peeks at him over her shoulder to find him crouched on the floor behind her.  
   
“Maybe you deserve a little kindness,” he says vaguely and she scrapes her teeth over her lower lip, shifting until she finds a smoother perch in the pool. “You think I'm trying to reel you in,” he continues, lifting his head and looking her in the eye.  
   
“Well I always think that,” she tells him casually, trying to lighten the mood. He huffs in agreement but then his eyes go out of focus again.  
   
“You just seemed so.... _sad_ ,” he says eventually. Rey swallows, not entirely sure how to take that. His lip twitches a little. “You were so...indignant, trying to kill me even though you didn't really know why.” Rey isn't enjoying the strange swirling feeling in her stomach as he talks about that day in the woods. “I don't know. You had something I wanted and I...I suppose I thought I could... _save_ you.”  
   
It's a long time before she speaks.  
   
“So I'm...what? A salve on your conscience?” Rey asks bitterly.  
   
“Hmmm, no the things I've done?” He's not smiling but wincing. “I'm sure there's no force in this universe that can redeem that,” he tells her eventually. Rey swallows around the lump in her throat. “But I suppose, you...you can make it mean something.”  
   
“I can't stand the things you do,” she utters, tears springing from her eyes even as she tries to repress them.  
   
“Except the things I do to you.” She can't pretend it isn't true.  
   
Xxx  
   
Love isn't good but it is complacent. She was so sure he could never hurt her that she's forgotten how strong he is. She's become so accustomed to those arms wrapped around her that she falters as they swing his blade down onto hers with a force that steals her breath.  
   
It's a futile endeavor really but it is at least an outlet for pent up emotions, for all his jealousy, for all her guilt. They punish each other, blades crashing together to send showers of sparks cascading around them. She knows he likes the way she cries, the way she whimpers when he knocks her to the ground, the way she screams as she surges back against him. She's forgotten what a beast he is, the way he snarls and grunts and how his face twists up in a rage. It shouldn't excite her but it does.  
   
They end locked a strange embrace, like they did before they swapped fighting for fucking. Only it was never really fucking, at least, not until today. He's always been so tender, so gentle with her that it made it easy for her to forget who he was, to forget what he does. The way he takes her that day in the temple makes her doubt herself, that maybe she isn't so pure and good as she liked to believe. She likes the way he finishes ripping her already torn clothes off her body, likes the angry clench of his jaw and the madness in his eyes as he looms over her. He leaves huge purple welts on her neck and shoulders with his teeth, bracelets of bruises on her wrists as he fucks her, there on the floor of the old throne room. It would be so easy to explain, to tell them he forced her. No, maybe she isn't so good as all that.  
   
“Tell me you love me,” he snarls, his breath a ragged, stuttering sound through clenched teeth. “Tell me!!”  
   
“I love you,” Rey chokes and his face twists up like he's crying, his whole body going stiff like a bug trying to coil in on itself as he comes.  
   
“You're mine,” he tells her, stroking his hands all over her body. He leans close and cups her face, his kisses less angry now. “You're mine,” he repeats. “And I'm yours.”  
   
   
Xxx  
   
   
She's running, again. Always running it seems but this time she can't blame her tears on the rain.  
   
Through the trees she spies the carcasses of fighters strewn across the tarmac, the black bones of their charred frames stark against the flames. The sky is orange, the air thick with smoke and the noise, oh the noise is unbearable. TIE fighters screaming like banshees through the night and the endless sound of cannon fire. The broken ground swarms with Stormtroopers and she presses against the trunk of a tree, out of sight. She hopes.  
   
She's panting, her lungs are burning and her heart hammering out a manic rhythm in her chest. She screws her eyes up, takes a deep breath and bangs her head against the tree.  
   
Stupid. Stupid to believe there was ever anything good in him.  
   
Light flickers behind her eyes and she opens them to see a dozen white flashes in the woods ahead. She steels herself, glancing from side to side before darting into the darkness back towards her X-wing and hoping to the stars the others made it out in time.  
   
Of course he is waiting for her when she arrives, a lingering shadow beneath the nose of her ship. If she wasn't angry enough she's positively livid that he has the gall to seem so casual, his hand brushing the scorched hull and his mask sitting in the crook between the wings.  
   
“You,” she spits, her face contorted with anguish. “How could you?”  
   
“How could I not?” he answers grimly, stepping towards her with his hand outstretched. Rey backs up as he moves near until the tell tale clatter of weapons behind freezes her in her tracks. She twists her head over her shoulder to see a dozen Stormtroopers fanning out around them, weapons aimed straight at her head. With a wave of his hand, Kylo Ren bids them stand down, sloping ever closer until he's standing in front of her.  
   
“There's no escape. This time I'm not letting you go.” Rey shakes her head furiously.  
   
“You waited for me to leave, didn't you?” she accuses breathlessly. “You used me.” He lets out a tired sigh.  
   
“You knew this day had to come,” he tells her in a low tone. “You can't have forgotten who I am. You never let me forget it.” Rey hunches her shoulders and sobs and when he reaches up a hand to comfort her, she bats it away angrily.  
   
“Don't touch me,” she hisses, spinning away only to be greeted by the sight of soldiers barring her path. A radio crackles somewhere in the distance and she straightens her shoulders. “You can't really think they'll stop me,” she sneers.  
   
“And where do you think you'll go?” he asks. She has some ideas but she's not going share them with him, not that he really wants to hear them. He has ideas of his own. His thumb brushes along her cheekbone, his fingers resting under her jaw. “You can't be alone,” he says. “Not now.”  
   
“We could have gone anywhere,” she whispers, the tracks of tears glinting silver in the half light. “I'd have gone anywhere. It didn't have to be like this.” She isn't sure why it doesn't please her that even in the midst of victory he looks so defeated. It doesn't matter. War is a monstrous, senseless thing.  
   
“No,” he says eventually. “No, I can't let everything I've done be for nothing.” He looks her in the eye. “At least I can let it be for you.”  
   
Xxx  
   
   
He's sure Rey could snap necks with a thought if she tried so Kylo is fairly certain she can take care of herself but the point is that he doesn't want her to. She leans her chin into her hand, watching as he peels a hard boiled egg for her breakfast. Rey chews it slowly as he gazes on with approving eyes, smiling at her.

“You're beautiful,” he tells her and his smile grows at the adorable flush that blooms across her cheek. The smile morphs into a scowl at the buzz of the console across the room, an unrelenting trill breaking the bubble of domestic harmony. Rey gives him sympathetic look, watching as he prowls towards the console and answers the communique with a gruff bark.  
   
She sips a glass of water and washes down the rest of the egg, staring through the open door for a minute while Ren deals with the call. She senses his eyes on her and turns to see him gesture at the food on the table with his chin. Rey obediently picks up a slice of bread and begins to eat. She knows without listening to the conversation that he has to go, that he'll be gone all day but that's okay because they won't really be apart.  
   
He comes back to the table, sinking down onto his knees beside her chair and leaning his arm across the back. She rests her hand on his shoulder and fiddles with the tips of his hair.  
   
“I have to leave,” he tells her, the disappointment evident in his tone. Rey purses her lips and nods. She's disappointed too.  
   
“When will you be back?” she queries, meeting his eyes for a brief moment before tracking the path of her hand along his collarbone.  
   
“I won't be long,” he assures her, plucking her hand from his shoulder and pressing a kiss to her palm. “Just a few hours.” She nods.  
   
“Maybe I'll go out,” she ventures and he scowls a little. “Don't I always come back?” It's not like she has anywhere else to go.  
   
“I'm not sure that's a good idea,” he says. “Not with him so close.” Rey lets out a dejected sigh but smiles anyway.  
   
“Hmmm,” she replies with a vague nod of her head. His lashes flutter as he leans closer, stroking his hand down the side of her head.  
   
“I know you're bored,” he tells her soothingly. “But it's not forever.”  
   
“No,” Rey agrees. He strokes his hands over her shoulders, down her arms and catches her hands in his. Stroking his thumbs in circles over her palms, he closes his eyes and leans his forehead against hers.  
   
“I just want to take care of you,” he murmurs. “Give you the things you never had.” Rey blinks and looks him in the eye, smiling wanly at the earnestness there. His hand slides up her thigh to rest on the heavy swell of her stomach. “A family of your own.”  
   
“I know,” she tells him. She's not sad, just tired. Always tired.  
   
She hovers around him as he finishes dressing, slides his coat over his shoulders and holds his helmet and saber while he stamps his feet into his boots. He rests his forehead against hers, his nose brushing her own for a moment while she strokes her fingertips across his jaw. A chaste but lingering kiss, eyes closed and breath held until they can't delay it any longer and he leaves. Rey stares at the closed door for a moment before she closes her eyes, reaching out to feel his presence like a receding light in the night.  
 


End file.
